fiscal cliff. despite spine signs of a deal in sight, house speaker boehner accused the president of holding back when it comes to spending cuts. >> the longer white house slow walk this is process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff. we know that the president wants more stimulus spending and increase in the debt limit without any cuts or reforms. that's not fixing our problem. frankly, it's making it worse. >> let me bring in our "news nation" political panel this hour. chris cafinus, michael smerkonish and louies romanis. what are we to make of speaker boehner coming out today, not sure of the overall message other than he wanted to have, i guess, a sound bite to play today as we continue to talk and the president is off at least negotiating behind the scenes on the fiscal cliff. >> i think you called it, tamron. look, the rhetoric is scaled back dramatically in the last few days. they're talking and seriously evidenced by the fact we're not learning that much. they're keeping it pretty close to the vest. i think the speaker is under enormous pressure of his own caucus to get something, to extract something in

to avert the fiscal cliff. what are the people at home thinking of their actions. we have a pri view for a poll that debuts tonight. part of that is compromising what folks want to see from the lawmakers. >> a lot of americans want to see compromise. according to the poll, 65% want a compromise balanced deal to reduce the deficit. even if they have to reduce the entitlement program like medicare and social security and the republicans on have to support increase in tax rates for the wealthy. of course you were playing a lot of clips from people open to compromise. it does seem to be the broad parameter that want a balanced deal. that's what john boehner and president obama are currently arguing about. par are it's interesting, mark. you and the team noted the confusion, if you want. maybe because of the leadership. the headlines and the ap has the headline fiscal cliffs appear to be stalled and the hill's headline edge towards the deal and deficit reduction negotiations. are both true? >> both are true and you have to look at the totality of the story. today is wednesday and you